Chapter 11: School Life

The next day, as soon as Harry walked out of the dormitory, he found Zhang Qiu standing in the corridor on the eighth floor. She was leaning against the wall, flipping through a small notebook in her hand.

"Zhang!" Harry greeted her happily, "What are you doing here?"

"Are you calling me, Harry?" Zhang Qiu came back to her senses and said with a smile, "I thought you were sneezing. You'd better call my full name. Oh right, I was worried you would be led astray by the winding stairs, so I came specifically to lead the way for you."

"I think I shouldn't be..."

"You might not have noticed, the road at Hogwarts is not that easy to recognize." Zhang Qiu said, "Many stairs move around, some stairs are transparent, and some are really missing a section. Most doors can't be opened, some need passwords, while others don't open at all. Instead, some walls will show hidden paths as long as you bump into them."

Harry's expression became wonderful.

"If you try to remember their positions, you have to be careful. The portraits on the wall will walk around to visit, and the decorative armor will also take walks. The best way is to firmly remember which direction you walked and how far. I got lost several times in my first year. Master said this kind of box garden can be solved with the Cartesian coordinate system, but unfortunately, I can't find a wizard named Descartes in any book."

"Is it really that terrible?" Harry was a bit suspicious, but he didn't refuse Zhang Qiu's kindness, "Then I'll leave it to you, my first class is Transfiguration."

"Luo En, you have to follow me closely." Zhang Qiu said, "I guess your bad brother must have told you a lot of wrong knowledge."

After several twists and turns, Zhang Qiu led the two directly to the third floor, and then tried to push open the door at the end of the corridor. The three of them couldn't open it even with the strength of eating milk, until Filch appeared at the other end of the corridor, and she said angrily that she remembered wrong, and led them to find the Transfiguration classroom from another road.

The Transfiguration teacher was Professor McGonagall. She sternly asked Zhang Qiu why she appeared here. Zhang Qiu explained that Harry couldn't find the way, and McGonagall let her go. After Zhang Qiu left, Ron said with some dissatisfaction that you could just jump down from upstairs and go to the second floor, there was no need to go around floor by floor.

Only then did Harry realize that Hogwarts was a school, and a magic school at that. Since the school dared to make the stairs missing, it should also have protective magic to prevent students from falling and getting injured—of course, jumping directly was obviously a very impolite thing.

Professor McGonagall was a very strict person. She sternly warned everyone in the first class that they were not allowed to mess around in her classroom. Moreover, she directly showed a unique skill, turning the desk into a little pig, quickly winning the admiration of the students.

The teacher of the afternoon Charms class was a very short person. Harry knew this kind of person was called a "dwarf." Most dwarfs are smart, and Professor Flitwick was no exception. It is said that he had won the champion of the duel competition several times.

After the Charms class ended, it was Herbology class. They had to go to the greenhouse behind the castle to fiddle with those strange fungi and plants. Harry found that Neville seemed to have a talent for Herbology. He could always identify herbs quickly and accurately, and could also say their functions in detail, which made Harry feel very admirable.

After the Herbology class, Harry met Zhang Qiu again on the way back to the castle. She told Harry that writing homework in the common room was very inefficient. She liked to go to the library to write homework, where it was quiet and undisturbed, and she could quickly find the required information.

Harry originally liked to write homework in the study. After dinner, he picked up his textbooks and prepared to go to the library. Ron was a bit reluctant, he wanted to play chess in the dormitory.

The two had just set up the chessboard when Neville came back. He looked at Harry in surprise and said loudly: "McGonagall assigned so much homework, and the spells taught by Flitwick can also be practiced again, but you are playing chess here?"

For a moment, Harry felt Neville was a bit annoying.

"Can these little things improve your magic level? Can you defeat You-Know-Who by relying on Wizard's Chess?" Neville questioned, "Is the savior's job to play games happily every day?"

"Uh, sorry." Harry also knew in his heart that it was wrong to start playing without finishing his homework. He picked up his textbooks and whispered: "Let's go to the library."

"I'll read in the dormitory." Ron packed up the chess pieces in a boring way, "I'll continue reading that alchemy book."

Harry circled the stairs several times before finding the library. He walked around and found that there was almost no empty space left. He saw the little witch with hair like a squirrel, seemed to be called Hermione, and there was still an empty seat beside her.

But just then, Neville sat down in that seat, Hermione smiled at him, and the two started writing homework together.

Harry walked in a bit more, and he saw Zhang Qiu at a glance. There were also seats beside her, and there were two.

"Didn't Luo En come?" Zhang Qiu asked softly when she saw Harry coming over with books.

"He's reading a novel in the dormitory." Harry of course knew what Ron's so-called alchemy textbook was.

"Truly unmotivated." While saying this, she gently picked up a book from the empty chair.

"Are you specifically leaving seats for us?" Harry was surprised.

"Yeah." Zhang Qiu nodded, put the book on the pile of books in front of her, and then smiled at him.

Harry was fascinated by this gentle smile. He was in a daze for a long time before he barely reacted, spread out his parchment, and tried to write something. But he found it very difficult to calm down, and couldn't help but look around.

At this time, he noticed the book Zhang Qiu just picked up, and the title on the side was "Examination of the Elder Wand."

Harry suddenly remembered the fairy tale he read last night, and couldn't help but ask curiously: "Can I look at this book?"

"Of course, I don't need it tonight, I just borrowed it to occupy the seat." Zhang Qiu said.

The book said, "The widely circulated fairy tale 'The Tale of the Three Brothers' might not just be a fairy tale. There has always been a rumor that if someone can collect the three gifts of Death, they can defeat Death. This book aims to conduct some examinations on the Elder Wand that may exist."

From the eldest brother Antioch Peverell of the three brothers, in one murder, blood, and betrayal after another, no owner could truly control this powerful wand. Harry soon got tired of the stories on it. People obtained it by despicable or cruel means, and then lost it because of more despicable and cruel means.

After reading a few pages, Harry put it back and focused on writing the paper assigned by Professor McGonagall.

At night, when the two bid farewell, Zhang Qiu said that she also had classes in the morning tomorrow, so she couldn't lead the way for Harry, and her tone was very apologetic.

This made Harry very embarrassed. He explained that he already knew the weirdness of the school's roads and would leave early to find the classroom in the future, so Zhang Qiu didn't have to do that.

"That's great." Zhang Qiu smiled and bid farewell to him.

On the third day, Harry got up early. He had plenty of time to find the way and arrived at the classroom on time. This class was Quirrell's Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Harry was still quite curious about Defense Against the Dark Arts, and in fact, he was curious about everything.

"We can see that this page talks about some practical little tricks, you can go back and practice." Quirrell said very, very slowly, "Very practical, remember, in this course, if you only come to class and don't spend a lot of time practicing after class, you won't be able to learn... to defend against the Dark Arts."

Harry knew that this speed of speech was to avoid stuttering, but he still felt very uncomfortable listening to it.

"Then let's take a look at the picture on this page first." Quirrell said, "This is an Ouroboros, swallowing itself. Its meaning is infinity, cycle, very magical. This reminds me of the Mercury Snake. The end of time is also the beginning of time, and three Mercury Snakes swallowing each other form the Wheel of Fate. Luck and misfortune are also a cycle. When you have been proud for more than ten years, it should be your enemy's turn..."

Harry was tortured by this speed of speech until he was sleepy, and Quirrell put aside the Spark Charm and didn't talk about it, but came up to crazily interpret a decorative picture on the side, which made him feel very uncomfortable.

When Harry realized that he had missed a section of content, he found that he couldn't understand the following content.

"... So, the more powerful the wizard, the more he walks on his end. Because the extraordinary characteristics must be conserved. What is separated must aggregate, and what is aggregated must be separated. For example, Headmaster Deng Buliduo is very powerful, but his power is not eternal, so he chose to become the headmaster and share the power with others. And you as his students will eventually divide and eat that extraordinary..."

"I'm not very clear, what is he talking about?" Harry asked Ron in a low voice.

"Saying that we will be as powerful as Deng Buliduo in the future?" Ron said uncertainly, "Maybe, I don't understand very well either, he said it a bit too profoundly."

"Then, let's go back to talk about the Spark Charm." After an unknown amount of time, Quirrell finally returned to the topic, "Who is willing to try, can you release this spell?"

The students who listened to half a class of theory didn't dare to raise their hands at this time, so Quirrell picked up the list.

"Harry Potter." He read, "Are you willing to try?"

"I..."

"Forget it." Quirrell looked very disappointed, "Even the savior can't do it, then what else is there to say. You just look at the book carefully, whoever learns it can come up and try."

Harry browsed the textbook quickly. In fact, he had read it several times during the summer vacation. Spark Charm, Lumos, Repelling Charm, Smoke Charm, there were only these few main spells in the whole book. Others were just changing the color of the sparks, making the Lumos brighter or dimmer, and then it was the introduction to Dark creatures.

To tell the truth, if it was just letting him read the book, Harry didn't think this course was very profound. However, judging from the nonsensical words of Professor Quirrell, perhaps Defense Against the Dark Arts was much more difficult than he imagined. ===== CHAPTER 12 =====